


don't listen when I scream

by lilabut



Category: Sleepy Hollow (TV)
Genre: (only in a dream), Angst, Crime Scenes, F/M, Five Stages of Grief, Grief/Mourning, Harm to Children, Hurt/Comfort, Violence, more tags as the story continues
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-04-02
Updated: 2015-04-02
Packaged: 2018-03-20 22:25:18
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,761
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3667476
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lilabut/pseuds/lilabut
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>They say when faced with catastrophic loss, everyone goes through five stages of grief. </p>
<p>Ichabod has lost his wife and son, their blood still warm on his hands. And before long, Abbie realizes she might be losing Ichabod somewhere along the dark road ahead of them. The weeks after the deed, and a partnership tested under the choke-hold of grief.</p>
            </blockquote>





	don't listen when I scream

Two black roses, stained with blood. They lay abandoned, innocent. Rotten.

 

Abbie reaches for Ichabod's hand, his long fingers fumbling nervously by his side (she knows he does this all the time, knows the way his back is painfully straight, recognizes the tension in his arm - it is the blankness in his blue eyes she does not recognize). His skin is cold, his palm sweaty. For a brief moment, not even long enough for Abbie to close her eyes and really _hold_ him, Ichabod stills. Then, he drops her hand, bends down to pick up the roses - all in deafening silence.

 

He throws them into the trash, and Abbie stands silently by the open door of the cabin, the cold creeping into her bones as the sunlight reflects from the drops of blood that have soaked into the wooden floor, casts dancing shimmers of jewels on the ground.

 

She can almost taste the iron on her tongue.

 

That first night, Abbie lets Crane stay at her house, makes him tea (which he refuses), offers him blankets (which he keeps neatly folded at the end of her spare bed), orders food (which he barely touches).

 

The tea she drinks burns too hotly on its way down her throat. The blanket she throws over her own shoulders does little to ease the cold that seems to have clawed itself deeply into her bones, refusing to leave. The noodles she swallows greedily taste like nothing, fall apart between her teeth and leave a foul taste in her mouth.

 

She falls asleep on her own couch, her arm tucked so awkwardly behind Crane's back that she can barely feel the limb by the time she jolts awake as he tries to tuck a pillow under her head.

 

He wordlessly disappears into her spare bedroom when she untangles her arm from around him.

 

She pretends not to hear him cry.

 

..

 

_Tears are spilling over as she holds a dying boy, blood soaking his stained linen shirt (she has seen this shirt, but where? why is it so large, swallowing the poor boy whole?). Her hands press into a wound she seeks but can not find, crimson blood seeping through her fingers, too warm, too much. She whispers desperately to the boy and pleads with him, squeezes his hand, but he seems to pay no mind to her frantic words. He only smiles at the night sky, void of stars and moonlight._

 

_A bell rings somewhere in the distance, and the boy convulses in her arms, laughs with a voice too deep for a child (she has heard this voice before, but the face to whom it belongs fades away into the dark night)._ Father _, he mutters._ Father. Father. Father. _Abbie burns where she holds his hand, and suddenly her fingers grip him too tightly, with a force she does not recognize, a force she does not want. Can not control. Skin turns to ash, and beneath her, the boy crumbles into dust._ Father. Father. 

 

_She can not stop it._

 

With a sharp gasp, Abbie sits up in her bed, her blanket falling down to her waist. The air that floods her lungs burns like fire, flames licking the inside of her throat. She runs trembling fingers along the back of her neck, pulls them back to see them glistening with sweat. It reminds her of the boy's blood on her hands, but she can no longer recall his face.

 

..

 

A woman kills her husband, snaps his neck without even laying a hand on him. She trembles all over, is small and delicate in the uncomfortable chair of the interrogation room. Her tears are real, as is the blank horror in her eyes, and Abbie can not stop herself when she reaches steady fingers across the table and squeezes the woman's hand. _I didn't want to hurt him. I love him. What is happening to me?_

 

In the back of her mind and beneath layers of skin, Abbie can still feel rope around her wrists, can still hear the ominous ringing of the old bell. _I can fix this. It'll be fine, I promise._ The woman smiles a quivering and hesitant smile, obscured by her tears.

 

Ichabod kills her that night, shoots her straight through the heart with almost haunting precision. She still has blood on her hands, blood from where she has ripped out the officer's heart, has dug a hole into his chest with a wicked grin and milky white eyes.

 

As the bullet hits her, white slowly fades, revealing a pair of terrified, widened brown eyes. Her lips open into a surprised gasp, a last breath only a mere second before she tumbles to the floor, red hair like a crown of blood against the harsh asphalt of the road.

 

Abbie lowers her own gun as her broken promise echoes through the night. Wordlessly, Ichabod walks back towards her car, never turning back for a last glance at the poor woman.

 

Her name was Catherine.

 

They never talk about her again.

 

..

 

She can see that he has not slept in days. But she never says a word. Tells herself he will talk to her when the time is right - until she believes her own lies.

 

He knows what he will see when he closes his eyes. So he stares into the fire night after night. He tells himself not to burden Abbie with his pain - until he believes his own lies.

 

..

 

Father. Father.  _Blood seeps through her fingers, not red but black, thick and warm. Bells echo through the night as hail rains down from the sky. She catches it with her bare hands, watches the crimson crystals turn into ash. Tastes the blood on her tongue. She turns, and suddenly there is a gun in her hands._ Father _. The little boy looks at her with big, round eyes. They turn black, black as the night, black as the blood on her hands, and when he lifts his small hands, the world-_

 

Her phone harshly drags Abbie back into reality. She sits upright too quickly, feels her neck and shoulders stiff and tense from the awkward angle, stars flickering until her vision clears (she would rather disappear in a sea of stars than face the harsh truth, and this is not her, she does not run. she fights). With trembling hands, she searches for her phone, pulls it out from a crack in her couch.

 

_Crane?_ Her voice breaks slightly, and she hopes that he will blame it on a bad connection. _What's up?_ A quick glance at her watch tells her it's only 3 pm, and she curses herself for falling asleep so early.

 

_Pardon the intrusion, Miss Mills._ He sounds tired, his voice monotone, and the fact that this has become the norm is almost sickening. She misses the fire in his voice, the enthusiasm. It seems to have dissolved along with Katrina and his son, and together with his fire, her own has begun to fade. _I merely wanted to confirm our eating arrangements for tonight._

 

_What?_ Her fingers feel cold as she rubs them against her swollen eyes, still heavy-lidded. Cold like ice, not warm like blood.

 

_The Spanish restaurant you meant to show me. That was today, if I am not mistaken._

 

Abbie stares at her television screen for far too long, stares blankly as the news flash by in a blur of violent explosions, crying children, gray-haired senators and heavy rainclouds. She remembers, of course, and there is no need to check the date. It is today.

 

She had promised to take him there, had to practically force him to agree. The memory of that afternoon now seems centuries away (and she knows now how that feels, when centuries have truly passed within a day).

 

_Oh, right. Sorry, I- I guess I forgot. Do you... Do you still want to go?_

 

_Oh, I must insist._ He makes no pause for breath, and Abbie can not find it within herself to disagree with him.

 

..

 

It is the first time in months that she has been in the cabin's only bedroom.

 

_Miss Mills, wait, there really is no need to fetch-_

 

A floor-length purple robe is folded over the arm of a chair. The bed is neatly made, two sets of pillows rested against the headboard. An intricately decorated hair brush, red jewels reflecting the light from the silver handle on the bedside table, abandoned. Curtains drawn shut. A woman's clothes stacked on a shelf.

 

Behind herself, Abbie hears Ichabod's rushed steps falter, his words fade into heavy silence.

 

It is the first time since Purgatory that Abbie has been in this room.

 

She should say something, should grab all of _her_ things and burn them to the ground. The pain in her heart tugs and roars, the need to comfort Crane almost unbearable because he just will not let her. This is neither healthy nor normal, much like all of their lives - how are they supposed to handle all the pain, all the betrayal?

 

So, she grabs his coat without losing a single word. When she turns and faces Ichabod, he gazes down at her with a hint of fear in his eyes, and Abbie wants to slap it off his face and knock some sense back into him, bring back the man who has once crashed into her life and turned it upside down. Instead, she shakes her head, avoids his gaze, stuffs his coat into his chest a little too roughly.

 

The next day, when he makes them tea, Abbie realizes the bedroom door is locked.

 

It hurts more than being shut out from his pain. So much more.

 

..

 

_I heard you scream last night._

 

_Just a nightmare._

 

_I know, heard you scream every night this week. Ran up to your room the first two times. You were crying._

 

_Yeah, nightmare._

 

Abbie knows that Jenny wanted to make a point, wanted to help, but instead she turns away to grab two plates from the shelf, cutting off this conversation before it can grow roots in places she knows will be too painful. Too deep.

 

That night, the boy chokes her before he dies in her arms, tears of blood trailing from his black, hollow eyes as she screams into the darkness. She still can not recall his face.

 

..

 

The woman's body has blistered almost beyond recognition, and the stench of burned human flesh is so prominent that Abbie needs to press the back of her hand against her nose. It reminds her of that first week after Corbin's death, when her own doubts had been crushed to ash by flames as she hunted down a witch. Memories of those first days cut deep, and she pushes them away into a well-hidden corner of her brain.

 

_What've we got, Dan?_ The coroner looks up at her words, nodding curtly at Crane who is already kneeling down by his side to inspect the body, before offering Abbie a kind smile.

 

_Not much to tell you at the moment, lieutenant. It's a female victim, and there are signs of severe bone fractures, but I can't tell you for sure what the COD was, yet,_ Dan explains, a kind man with a round face. Abbie wonders sometimes, whenever she watches him dig through decomposed bodies, what had gone wrong in his life that he spends his waking hours with the dead. Wonders until a little voice in her head quiets her, a voice reminding her of the path her own life has taken.

 

_Burning, maybe?_ Abbie suggests with a laugh, and he snorts rather inelegantly at that, drawing Crane's attention away from the woman's molten flesh. It is almost entertaining, the way her partner cringes at the coroner’s laughter, a stifled display of disapproval. Still, the sight twinges with sadness, because a few weeks ago, Crane would have ranted about it all later in the car, and she'd have to beg and plead for him to shut his mouth. Now, he would be quiet the entire drive, not a word exchanged on the matter.

 

_Lieutenant Mills!_ Abbie turned, feeling two pairs of eyes following her. She spots the sheriff only a few feet away, marching towards them with sure and determined strides, heels clicking on the brick road. The warehouse's yard is sheltered enough from the busy road that connects it to the town, but Reyes seems uneasy nonetheless, eyes scanning the small crowd of police workers and medical personnel.

 

_Sheriff Reyes, is there a problem?_ Abbie asks just as Reyes comes to a stop, hand propped up on the gun strapped to her side.

 

_Yes_ , Reyes replies curtly and rushed. _The press is under the impression that we found the body of Melinda Cellar._

 

_The teacher who was reported missing yesterday?_ Abbie interrupts before Reyes can continue. The memory of Melinda Cellar's husband pleading with the police officer in charge, his tears, it is a painfully sharp one. There is not much more that Abbie knows about the case, though, and it seems a morbid thought to prematurely try to find similarities between the beaming, pretty woman whose face is plastered all over town, and the broken, burned body by her feet.

 

_Exactly. Now, that may or may not be true_ , Reyes continues, her eyes drifting off towards the woman's body, not even the slightest hint of an emotion flickering across her stern features. It is a far stretch from Corbin, always warm and kind-hearted, taking all and all to heart, never allowing anything to remain buried. Abbie wonders often if she could ever allow herself to be more like him and less like Reyes, if the risk of not distancing herself from everything she and Crane see is a risk worth taking. _I need you to make sure that every detail of this investigation stays under wraps until we can make an official statement._

 

_Of course, Sheriff._ It might be her specialty, keeping things under wraps, keeping things hidden, and the thought almost makes Abbie laugh. It would have been a twisted, humorless, painful laugh. If only Reyes knew. If only the world knew everything that happens in the dark and misty moments it chooses to look past and ignore.

 

_Ah, Mr Crane_ , Reyes eyes suddenly turn up, and Abbie can feel Crane's towering presence behind her. It feels suffocating lately, like a dance she does not know the steps to. At Reyes next words, she almost trips and falls, her heart picking up to a speed that has her forehead burning and her palms clammy within a mere breath. _How is your wife? I haven't seen her in a while._

 

As her heart pounds on, Abbie expects many things. A prolonged silence, a stuttered lie, a confession screamed in agony and shame. What she does not expect, is the complete and utter calm in Ichabod's voice as he steps forward, hands folded behind his back, and had she not known that the fidgeting of his long fingers goes hand in hand with a deep unsettling of his mind and soul, she might have bought his confident lie without question (the way she has accepted all his lies since that night, the way she has forced herself to believe in her own lies). _I'm afraid my wife and I have chosen to separate permanently. She has chosen to leave Sleepy Hollow and return home._

 

There is an unmistakeable look of surprise on Reyes face, and she feels clearly uncomfortable having brought up the subject, a fact Abbie is grateful for when she drops the matter immediately. _I'm sorry to hear that._

 

_Rest assured my personal troubles will in no way compromise my work on this case._

 

Abbie briefly considers bringing up the subject of a proper cover story later that night, when they are huddled in front of the television with leftover pizza. But like every other night, she stays silent. Like every other night, she watches Crane as he pretends not to notice her staring. Like every other night, she waits for him to talk.

 

Like every other night, he turns away from her instead.

 

..

 

Frank throws a cautious glance in the direction of where Ichabod has disappeared to search for a scroll, view obscured by a towering shelf. _How is he doing?_

 

Abbie looks down at the faded drawings on the ancient parchment, eyes burning right through the page, seeing nothing. _He's keeping it together._

 

_And you're good? The two of you, I mean?_ Frank keeps his voice down.

 

_We're fine._ The voice in Abbie's head screams.


End file.
